


Twins

by dweeblet



Series: TAU Drabbles + Ficlets [1]
Category: Gravity Falls, TAU - Fandom, Transcendence AU - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Transcendence, Drift - Freeform, Gen, TAU drift AU, good end!drift AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-02
Updated: 2016-05-02
Packaged: 2018-06-05 20:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6721624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dweeblet/pseuds/dweeblet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>No matter how much he wants to see her, hold her, kiss her tears away and taste the thick scent of bubblegum that bursts from her voice when she laughs, he stays far away. He has to remind himself, sometimes, that he’s dangerous. </p><p>If he approaches her, she will die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Twins

He heralds the approach of the stars. Dressed in black, finely pressed for every twisted transaction, he pulls a dark sheet over the sky and broods his own disjointed death. Perched on the roof of a worn-down cabin, he vengefully taps his shiny dress shoes on the trembling shingles, but none of them so much as quiver.

Every evening he phases through the schematic human notion of dimensional barriers and privacy to watch his very favorite star in the night. Her heart is bared in all its tasteful nakedness on her sleeve, even while she sleeps, mouth set in a childish frown as she tosses and turns. He nudges her dreams towards brightness and pours every bit of pumpkin spice love he can muster from the remains of a ruptured heart into her head, but doesn’t dare to show his long-dead face behind her eyes.

Sometimes, she cries in her sleep if he isn’t careful. He puts in too much and a childish part of him comes forth, hoping and wanting so badly for her day-glo gaiety to spill back over a carefully guarded border that she dares not cross since the headstone came in six long years ago. He misses her, but cannot show himself.

More often than not, these years of bitter isolation take their toll all too clearly. Sometimes, he forgets what pain is, what love is. Those times frighten him, filling his head with doubt and fire, but a part of him that is very, very old stamps it out and whispers the very best way to gut a man alive.

He is a conglomeration of two that should never have met, and they grapple inside him for control. Sometimes he is one person, more like two monsters, or three demons.

“We need her,” pleads the little boy, voice hardly finished dropping with his youth. “We love her.” He agrees, but cannot voice it. To do so would be to risk his sanity, whatever rapidly degrading morality is left in the crumbling remains of his mind.

“We need NOTHING,” crows the gleaming yellow eye, wreathed in shadows and blue. “ESPECIALLY not from HER. We are GOD.” This hits a little too close to home. That morality is going, going, almost gone, anyway.

“I hate you both,” he’ll hiss, and close his eyes, and make no decision while the others scream at one another.

Other times, though, he stops being so few and feels a thousand, a million hearts beating behind his empty ribs, the hearts of old selves who died long ago, and new selves who’ve yet to live for the next hundred thousand millennia.

It is all he can do to wait. Perhaps once he dies the fighting will stop and the cerulean vitriol that drips from his fingertips will snuff itself out. The wicked yellow eyes will stop staring from the shadows and the wash of blood-red through the stained-glass window beneath the gable will stop eliciting nightmares of scarred forearms and broken wrists. He is not alone, but his flock of stormy gray wool can only do so much to help him. They’re nightmares, after all.

No matter how much he wants to see her, hold her, kiss her tears away and taste the thick scent of bubblegum that bursts from her voice when she laughs, he stays far away. He has to remind himself, sometimes, that he’s dangerous. If he approaches her, she will die.

But some things simply cannot be helped. The crust of salty tears on her cheeks is renewed every time she sees a picture, hears a name, is reminded of the old life they shared. She dares not return to Oregon. Never, never again.

It pains him to see her cry, so he does the only thing he can, blessed and cursed with his ghostliness, to comfort his other half. He pushes himself into the realm of physicality. The strain is more than worth the small help it does. He neatens her books for her in the night, careful to keep quiet. When the depression is too much and no pills can help her, he does her schoolwork, forges parents’ notes. He wants to make it easier, as much as a dead man can, and slips it all into her backpack when she is too weak to do anything but go through the motions.

She notices. Of course she would.

It’s too late for him to stop her because she realizes something is amiss. The ridiculous blue trucker cap he hasn’t worn since they were both twelve is pressed firmly over her bushy mane of chestnut curls, and candles are arranged in a lopsided circle as she prays and wishes for God and all heaven’s angels she’s never put much faith in to make sure he finds his way safe to the afterlife.

The prayers burn and sting like salt in a fresh wound, but he appreciates the sentiment.

**Author's Note:**

> just a Drabble that's been floating around my documents and I figured I may as well post it while working on fresh chapters for A Crooked Sort of Kindness


End file.
